Monthly Archives: September 2013

In late July of 2012, our friend Steve received a phone call from a man identifying himself as a FBI agent. He was told that a subpoena had been issued for him to appear before a federal Grand Jury investigating the vandalism of the Kenzo Nakamura Court of Appeals*. This phone call happened in conjunction with three other people being served subpoenas in Olympia and Portland, as well as house raids in Portland. Although Steve is a known anarchist in the Northwest, who has been subjected to state harassment before, up until this moment he has not been served or indicated as a suspect of the ongoing Grand Jury investigation targeting anarchists.

His life has been severely impacted by the course of events. He has made the choice to leave his former life behind in order to resist the Grand Jury on his own terms. This means that Steve has gone without face-to-face contact with his family, friends, and loved ones for many months.

The investigation and subsequent repression is still very much alive even though former prisoners, Maddy, Matt and Kteeo are now out of prison. The potential for criminal indictments remains a real possibility. Also, the effects of imprisonment and future threats of going back to prison, which could happen if any of the three are charged with criminal contempt, are not something that ends once one has left the prison walls behind.

While Steve has been doing his best to adjust to life in a new place, it has not been an easy transition. He is in a really rough spot right now, being thousands of miles away from his home and not knowing when he will be able to return. He has already been physically and verbally harassed by the state forces in his new location, and is having a hard time finding employment due to not having status and language barriers. At the same time, he has been doing his best to keep his spirits high and is grateful for all the support and solidarity he has received so far, and for the new friends he has made. The fact remains that life inside capitalist society is expensive, and at this point he has no income whatsoever. Please consider donating to Steve so he can take care of his rent, bills, transportation costs, and everything else this life forces us to pay for. As little or much as you can, anything helps.

*It is important to note that Steve stands in solidarity and complicity with all those accused of damaging the Kenzo Nakamura Court House.

Report on the rebellion in Brazil; nihilist review; tips on writing prisoners

At the high point, it seems like it will go on forever. You feel invincible, unstoppable. Then the crash comes: court cases, disintegration, depression.

Once you go through this several times, the rhythm becomes familiar. It becomes possible to recognize these upheavals as the heartbeat of something greater than any single movement.

Over the past six years, cities around the world have seen peaks of struggle: Athens, London, Barcelona, Cairo, Oakland, Montréal, Istanbul. A decade ago, anarchists would converge from around the world to participate in a single summit protest. Now many have participated in months-long upheavals in their own cities, and more surely loom ahead.

But what do we do after the crest? If a single upheaval won’t bring down capitalism, we have to ask what matters about these high points—what we hope to get out of them, how they figure in our long-term vision, and how to make the most of the waning period that follows them. This is especially pressing today, when we can be sure that there are more upheavals on the way.

To this end, we have organized a dialogue with anarchists in some of the cities that have seen these climaxes of conflict, including Oakland, Barcelona, and Montréal. This is the first in a series of reflections drawn from those discussions.

Practically all of the participants in these discussions independently reported that it was really hard for them to formulate their thoughts: “I don’t know why, but whenever I sit down to work on it, I get depressed.” This suggests a broader problem. Many anarchists depend on a triumphalist narrative, in which we have to go from victory to victory to have anything to talk about. But movements, too, have natural life cycles. They inevitably peak and die down. If our strategies are premised on endless growth, we are setting ourselves up for inevitable failure. That goes double for the narratives that determine our morale.

Movement – A mysterious social phenomenon that aspires to growth yet, when observed, always appears to be in decline.

When social change is gathering momentum, it is protean and thus invisible; only when it stabilizes as a fixed quantity is it possible to affix a label to it, and from that moment on it can only decompose. This explains why movements burst like comets into the public consciousness at the high point of their innovation, followed by a long tail of diminishing returns. A sharper eye can see the social ferment behind these explosions, perennial and boundless, alternately drawing in new participants and emitting new waves of activity, as if in successive breaths.

In Occupy Oakland, a three-week occupation gave way to a six-month decline. This bears repeating: movements spend most of their time in decline. That makes it all the more important to consider how to make the most of the waning phase.

As all movements inevitably reach limits, it is pointless to bewail their passing—as if they would go on growing indefinitely if only the participants were strategic enough. If we presume the goal of any tactic is always to maintain the momentum of a particular movement, we will never be able to do more than react quixotically against the inexorable passing of time. Rather than struggling to stave off dissolution, we should act with an eye to the future.

In 2009, environmental activist and community organizer Marie Mason was sentenced to almost 22 years in prison for the arson of an office which housed genetically modified organism (GMO) research and for the destruction of logging equipment. Marie is now serving the longest sentence of any activist in the U.S. for environmental direct action. Her sentence is part of a larger crackdown by the state on environmental activists, which has come to be known as the Green Scare. The Green Scare, much like the Red Scare and COINTELPRO, targets people for their politics. The government’s use of tactics such as entrapment, the spread of disinformation by paid informants, media smear campaigns, trumped up charges, and harsh prison sentences are all too familiar to folks who know their history.

Marie’s persecution has continued throughout her sentence. Without notice or cause, Marie was transferred from the low security FCI Waseca Prison to the notorious FMC Carswell. Over a thousand miles from friends and family, Marie is cut off from the general prison population, in…

Introduction

Across Turtle Island, a powerful resistance is rising. As corporations attempt to enter a new era of even dirtier fossil fuel production, indigenous communities are standing up to take direct action to protect Mother Earth. From Fort Chip to Beaver Lake, Red Lake to Lakota, communities are organizing. Some are pursuing legal challenges against violated treaties. Others are creating internet-driven mass movements such as Idle No More. Others still are reclaiming their roots by going back to the land to assert traditional law. Among the latter are the Unist’ot’en, the People of the Headwater, whose lands encompass a wide swath of Northern British Columbia.

When companies like Enbridge and Apache announced plans to build a massive pipeline corridor through these lands, it provoked outrage from the Wet’suwet’en people whose traditional territory lies directly in its proposed path. Of the five Wet’suwet’en clans, the Unist’ot’en were the first to officially declare themselves opposed to ALL pipelines being proposed to cross their traditional territories. Now the Likhts’amisyu, Tsayu, and Git’dum’den clans have followed suit and momentum is growing.

This article tells the story from the perspective of the Unist’ot’en and their allies at the Unist’ot’en Camp through the winter of 2012–3. It has been collectively produced by both indigenous and settler voices.

Taking Care of the Land—Unist’ot’en Resistance to Pipelines and Other Projects

Background and Cultural Context

Colonization has left a lingering impact on the 22,000 square kilometers of unceded Wet’suwet’en territories which stretch from the Bulkley Valley to Burns Lake. Weakened by a devastating series of contact-based illnesses, the Wet’suwet’en were displaced from their land over time as more and more settlers arrived in the area starting in the late 1800s. Decades of insidious assimilation policies served to reinforce colonial land-theft, including the establishment of the Moricetown reserve and the horrific residential school program that took many children from their homes and subjected them to physical abuse, sexual abuse, and Christian indoctrination. With the settlers came the logging and mining industries. Today, the forests have been decimated, a mono-cropped shadow of their former diversity.

Through all this, the sovereignty of Wet’suwet’en land was never surrendered, and to a large degree their culture remains intact. Today, many among the Wet’suwet’en still speak their language, fish and harvest berries as their ancestors did, and continue to maintain their traditional system of governance. But now the specter of a massive pipeline corridor has awoken a new urgency amongst the people. If the Wet’suwet’en do not rise to defend their lands now, the impact will be devastating, not only to them but for generations to come.

The Unist’ot’en are the original people distinct to the lands of the Wet’suwet’en. Over time, others have joined them and there are now five Clans who identify as Wet’suwet’en. Each clan has autonomous authority over its own traditional territory. Each territory has a hereditary chief who is responsible for its care.

Sovereignty and Traditional Governance

Hereditary Chiefs are chosen by the entire Clan Group; they prepare by learning about the features of the territory, how to conduct themselves on it, and the techniques and ceremonies that spiritually connect them to every aspect of their lands. In the past, medicine people selected chiefs while they were still in their mothers’ wombs. The current chief of the Unist’ot’en territory known as Talbits Kwa is Warner Williams, who was directed by his grandmother, the former chief, to protect the territory from development.

The decisions of the Clan are made in their Feast Hall, where all the members of the clan gather to share gifts with each other and manage their affairs. Here the Unist’ot’en practice a form of decision-making that resembles a consensus approach. They sit down and listen to each other, and together they come to decisions that reflect the unified position of the clan. The decisions made in the Feast Hall are the ultimate authority of the land—which is important to note in relation to the Band Council System of government.

The Band Council system is a governance structure created by the Canadian state through the Indian Act. The Unist’ot’en and grassroots Wet’suwet’en grudgingly accept that the Band Council has a limited authority, extending only to managing the affairs of the reserve it was created to represent. That authority in no way extends to traditional territory which remains governed by the Hereditary Chiefs. Therefore any deal claimed to have been reached by a pipeline company with a First Nation Band Council is not legitimate, unless it also has the consent of the Hereditary Chiefs and the Clan itself.

With respect to Unist’ot’en traditional territory, the Moricetown Band Council has acknowledged the authority of the hereditary chiefs and therefore refrained from signing any deals with pipeline companies. In other places such as Burns Lake, where the Band Council has been signing deals without even consulting the people, there has been growing protest. Representing an unbroken line of tradition that continued even through a period when the Feast system was made “illegal” by the state, the Wet’suwet’en regard their law as pre-dating and superseding the authority of the Canadian state.

The Clan Decision to Reject All Pipelines

When it came out that industry and government were hatching a plan for a massive pipeline corridor through their territory, the Unist’ot’en clan assembled to discuss the issue. They made the decision to reject all pipeline proposals. This uncompromising opposition to ALL pipelines through their territory is no surprise considering the historical reputation of the Unist’ot’en as a tough and hardy people with a fierce warrior tradition. The impact of the Unist’ot’en decision is considerable as their territories account for two thirds of the total Wet’suwet’en land base.

A major contributing factor to the decision of the Unist’ot’en was the influence of former chief Christine Holland, who directed her clan to protect the land and preserve it for future generations. The Unist’ot’en were also in a phase of reasserting their sovereignty in general; along with the other Wet’suwet’en clans, they had recently terminated unproductive treaty negotiations with Canada. In doing so, they choose to maintain their rights as a sovereign people that had never surrendered the title to their lands.

The Unist’ot’en knew that simply making the decision would not be enough to stop the pipelines. If they wanted to regain authority over their territory, they would have to get out on it. A clan cabin was constructed on the exact GPS coordinates of the proposed path of the Enbridge Northern Gateway and Pacific Trail Pipelines (then known as the Kitimat Summit Lake Loop or KSL). The site is situated in the Unist’ot’en territory known as Talbits Kwa, whose border follows the bank of the Wedzin Kwa (known colonially as the Morice River). A single-lane bridge is the only way in and out of the territory, and can only be accessed by a logging road running south from Houston, BC.

The First Action Camp

That summer the Unist’ot’en called for others to join them out on the territory for what would be their first annual Action Camp in July 2010. Among those who answered the call for solidarity were local allies from the other Wet’suwet’en clans, representatives from large environmental groups such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, and grassroots environmental activists and supporters of indigenous sovereignty. The camp organized a march through the nearby town of Smithers, where the Unist’ot’en served notice to the Ministries of Forest and Environment offices of their intention to manage their own affairs, announcing that any group or company which wished to access the territory would need to go through a Free Prior Informed Consent protocol with the members of the clan.

At the rally, hereditary chief Knedebeas asserted: “Our Unist’ot’en members will not sway under the threats and actions of industry and government. My grandmother Christine Holland gave us specific directions to protect our lands—that is exactly what we intend to do.”

Falling Out With The ENGOs and Transition to Grassroots Resistance

The initial presence of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) at the first action camp was controversial. Some indigenous allies were wary based on the history of ENGOs aligning with grassroots efforts then sidelining them to sign deals with industry, such as what happened during the Great Bear Rainforest campaign; but the ENGOs had a lot of resources to help generate publicity for the Unist’ot’en resistance to the pipeline.

Unfortunately, the relationships deteriorated over the course of the camp. It became clear that some of the ENGOs were uncomfortable with certain positions of the Unist’ot’en. One person even inquired if the phrase “No Offsetting” could be taken off one of the Unist’ot’en’s banners prior to the rally in Smithers. The Unist’ot’en regard offsetting as a dangerous false solution that allows polluters to continue their dirty practices by purchasing (often fictitious) offsets from another part of the world, but many ENGOs support offsetting—and possibly even hope to profit from it to fund their own activities

Further complicating the situation was the ENGOs reluctance to support the Unist’ot’en’s opposition to ALL pipelines. While the ENGOs were actively running campaigns against Enbridge Northern Gateway, they were ignoring that there was an entire corridor of pipelines planned. The ENGOs argued that opposing Northern Gateway was strategic, because there was more public support for opposing the oil pipelines than the gas ones. To the Unist’ot’en, stopping one pipeline meant nothing if you allowed all the others to pass through. In the end, many among the Unist’ot’en felt that the ENGOs were there to gain credibility as supporters of indigenous struggle, rather than to do actual work to benefit the territory.

1) Here is the political prisoner birthday poster for September. As always, please post this poster publicly and/or use it to start a card writing night of your own.

Some News And Updates:

2) The campaign to have Earth Liberation Front prisoner Marie Mason moved from her special isolation unit is underway! Please write a letter today. You can download the “Move Marie” here: trifold color brochure The text version and a sample letter are available here.

3) Brother Abdullah is in debilitating pain and unable to walk without assistance, due to an acute case of sciatica. Abdullah has suffered in this state for over two weeks and has, to no avail, submitted to all prison procedures, which are required in order to get medical attention, namely the “sick-call process.”

We are asking that you call the superintendent at Elmira Correctional Facility and demand that Abdullah Majid get immediate and proper medical attention. More Info here.

4) Mark “Migs” Neiweem of the NATO 5 has been in solitary for over a month. Please send him letters and photos (printed on plain computer paper) to give him something to look at in his cramped cell. More info here.

6) The CA prison hunger strike is entering its eighth week. It’s important that people keep putting the pressure on with phone calls and emails, protests, and attacks. Updates and background on the strike here.

7) Lastly, here is a link to the latest Political Prisoner/Prisoner Of War every-other week update by the NYC-Anarchist Black Cross. There are lots of important updates on many political prisoners.